Malaya Hammond, Marble Falls, Texas teen girl swept to her death saving her family from almost certain death after their van drove over a bridge washed away by flash floods.
A teenage girl has been hailed a hero after saving her family from almost certain death only to be swept to her own death during last weekend’s flash flooding in Texas.
Malaya Hammond, 17, of Marble Falls was traveling to a Christian summer camp with her family at 5 a.m. Saturday in the pitch of darkness when their vehicle drove off the Cow Creek Bridge which had just been washed out.
The episode led to the van being swept into overflowed river banks of Central Texas, according to a Facebook post from a family friend, Mikki Willis.
Malaya Hammond Texas teen sacrifices her life to save her family
Hammond a lifeguard and a certified swim instructor managed to open the door of the van, saving her parents, Liz and Matthew Hammond, and her younger siblings — Khalil, 16, and Surya, 14 — who would otherwise have been trapped under water.
‘In total darkness, they fought to stay above water,’ Willis wrote — but ‘Malaya was swept away by the fierce current.’
‘I tried to stop, but I couldn’t,’ Malaya’s father, Matthew Hammond recalled as he drove the vehicle, as he had countless many other times over the bridge, that suddenly no longer existed according to ABC News.
Willis said everyone got out of the car and was heading to shore when Malaya got stuck in a current and was pulled away from her family.
She had the ‘presence of mind to keep herself calm,’ the father said.
‘That was the last I saw her,’ he said.
Malaya’s family searched ‘day and night — by land, air, and water,’ for the missing 17 year old only for her body to be found two days later, on Monday.
Reflected Malaya’s father, ‘It’s a form of grief I’ve never known.’
‘I’ve lost people close to me, but this is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced,’ he said. ‘If you told me I was gonna be burying my daughter before I left this planet — no, not Malaya Grace.’
An online fundraiser has brought in more than $147,000 as of Friday evening.
